What are kiwis doing online, and more importantly, how do they feel about it? 2010 has seen some fantastic research into both social media use, and its relationship with business.

Activities

According to the Nielsen 2010 Social Media Report, of NZ internet users:

• 81% sent or shared a photo
• 75% posted photos online
• 73% sent or shared a link

Of regular online activities:

• reading wikis is up 26%
• creating social network profiles is up 16%
• updating social network profiles is up 17%
• looking at others’ social network profiles is up 16%

Altogether, 1.92 million online New Zealanders have looked to their fellow internet users for opinions and information about products, services and brands.

Platforms

Facebook

72% of New Zealanders use Facebook (source: Saatchi & Saatchi/Colmar Brunton, quoted here)

From the Nielsen report:

• 82% of online NZers have visited Facebook
• 70% have a Facebook profile
• 79% of social networkers say Facebook is their main social networking platform (was 19% in 2007!)
• Of those who have Facebook as their main profile, 54% visit the site at least daily, and 39% are on the site for at least 4 hours per week.
• 84% of mobile social networkers have visited Facebook (the most popular mobile site accessed)

And from Perceptive‘s July 2010 Omnibus, 15-24 year olds engage with Facebook the most frequently (surprise!).

Twitter

From the Nielsen report:

• 27% of online New Zealanders have visited twitter.com
• 11% have created a Twitter profile

From Saatchi & Saatchi / Colmar Brunton:

• 14% of New Zealanders “use Twitter”

From Perceptive’s Omnibus survey, again, 15-24 year olds spend the most time on Twitter.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a bit of a survivor. It’s older than most other social networks (established 2003) and it has successfully evolved from simply a place to post your resume online to a successful, business-focused social network.

LinkedIn has grown like topsy worldwide, and in New Zealand…

• There are more than 200,000 users according to Clifford Rosenberg, LinkedIn’s managing director Australia/NZ
• 8% of New Zealanders use LinkedIn, according to Saatchi & Saatchi/Colmar Brunton
• According to Perceptive, 35-54 year olds engage the most frequently with LinkedIn

YouTube

YouTube is the world’s second biggest search engine. And in New Zealand…

• 15% of mobile social networkers have accessed YouTube on their phone (Nielsen Report)
• Kiwis love engaging with YouTube, with a skew towards the younger audience (Perceptive)

Bebo

Yep, Bebo. It’s pretty much on life support, and virtually unusable for businesses (especially since they’re no longer selling NZ advertising) but it still has people on it. However it’s on the outskirts.

• In 2007, 35% named Bebo as their main social networking site. Today, it’s 4%. (Nielsen)
• 23% of mobile social networkers access Bebo on their phone.

MySpace

While Bebo was the king in NZ just 3 years ago, MySpace was the king of the world. Not so much any more.

According to Saatchi & Saatchi/Colmar Brunton 9% of New Zealanders use MySpace.

According to Nielsen, more people have a main profile on MySpace now (5%) than in 2007 (less than 1%).

According to Perceptive, MySpace is mostly frequented by 25-34 year olds.

Business

From Perceptive’s Omnibus:

This offers some guidance to companies who often feel caught in the “damned if you do/damned if you don’t” aspect of online engagement.

According to Nielsen:

• 42% of online kiwis are interacting with companies via social networking sites
• 44% have published opinions specifically about products, services and brands
• 73% have read other consumers’ product opinions
• Almost 2/3 of those who haven’t read consumer reviews and discussions intend to do so in 2010
• 44% of Twitter users in NZ say they have followed companies or brands

According to Saatchi & Saatchi/Colmar Brunton:

• 34% of kiwis want companies to actively interact with them
• 51% want companies to respond to requests on social media
• 41% want companies to solicit feedback
• 56% find companies on social media more engaging
• 57% feel better served by companies on social media

Conclusions

• Social media in New Zealand is mainstream.
• Businesses are active in social media and consumers are welcoming their presence.
• The best engagement is done on the customer’s terms

Many thanks to Jessica from Perceptive for her help putting this post together!

P.S: there’s also some great information from Social Media Club Auckland’s August session on measurement and analytics.

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John Johnston (JJProjects) led the social media campaign for the World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour earlier this year. Find out the connection between success and letting go of your message!

Key learnings:

• 21st century marketing – whether it’s for a non-profit cause or for a business – is about you being of service to your audience. In the case of Earth Hour, JJ’s team were of service to people around the world who cared about the environment, and gave them resources to rally others to the cause.
• The way to scale your social media project is to share control with your audience. Try to control everything, and you’ll never be able to scale.
• There may be malicious or negative people who will try to sabotage, but this is largely self-correcting as your community stands up for you.

There’s a theme here of cooperating with your audience. It’s emerging in all sorts of aspects of business, as I discovered at the Auckland Tweetup on Friday night. Justin Flitter told me that Zendesk finds its staff among its greatest fans on the community forums. Our intern Courtney, who’s also a big fan of Giapo Icecream, found herself behind the counter serving a customer. An apt analogy for what’s happening now.

Will you let your customers behind the counter? When does this not work? Love to hear your thoughts, as always.

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(This continues our coverage of the Marketing Now Conference. Also check out my posts on day 1 and 2 , and the three iJumpTV episodes devoted to the conference)

"Social media reminds me of the story of the five blind men and the elephant. Asked to describe the elephant, one said ‘it’s long and thin’, because he could feel the tail. Another said, ‘no, it’s flat and thin’, because he was feeling the ear. Yet another said ‘you’re crazy! It’s like a tree trunk, thick and round’, because he was feeling the leg.

"They all could see different aspects of social media, yet none of them could see it in its entirety. That’s the same kind of situation we’re in now – there’s a revolution beginning and we haven’t begun to see all the potential effects.

Yet on this panel we have some of the most expert elephant gropers in the world. They’ve been feeling the elephant for years. And they’re here to answer your questions."

That’s how I introduced the panel of speakers – Sharon Crost , Stephen Johnson , Jim Stewart , David Meerman Scott and Chris Brogan – in the final session of Marketing Now. It was an action-packed session, with almost as much commentary from the audience as from the speakers. Here are some of the highlights.

Greig Buckley, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau , had a very interesting question about the future of ad-supported online services. To paraphrase his question, how will paid advertising online survive if marketers are shifting their efforts to free social media marketing ? (In fact, the word he used was "parasitic", but he was at pains to point out he implied no judgement in using that word)

The answers from the panel tended to say the same thing: we don’t see the solution yet, but it was strongly in the interests of media owners (and the owners of services like YouTube) to figure out a solution soon. None of them are in it for love, they are all in it for commercial reasons, but at the moment we are at an experimental stage.

Another question was about how to start an online community . One audience member had budgeted $25,000 to develop a Facebook-like community. Another audience member recommended Ning.com , pointing out that it did most things an online community platform needs to do, for free (or US$25 a month for an ad-free service). But that’s only half the story.

The other half of the story is the need for a community leader or manager. The technology is just the beginning; communities need nurturing and leadership, and that can only be done by a person. So the panel’s advice: invest that money in a person and/or people to lead that community .

The last story, and by far the most common question we hear at iJump, is "where do we start?"

Of course, there is no one answer, so the next best thing was to ask people in the audience to share their plans and next steps. Most next steps included an exploration of Twitter and Google Alerts , as well as developing buyer personas (as per David Meerman Scott’s presentation ).

This session was also the beginning of the NZ Social Media Network – where socialising means business . Established by Siobhan Bulfin and ourselves, this is a place for business people to learn from each other about social media, with a New Zealand focus.

Even if you weren’t able to attend the conference, we’d love to see you at the NZ Social Media Network .

(Thanks to digitalART2 for the fantastic Elephoto)

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